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Choose Database | Phrasing a Query | I have a citation. Now what?

Choose a Database

You are not going to want to search all 100+ databases that we subscribe to. Instead you are going to want to consider the scope and coverage of individual databases to determine which ones suit your needs. The databases are arranged by subject on our Find Articles page, as well as a list of databases alphabetically.

But in general, databases fall into one of three categories:

General/Interdisciplinary Databases

Databases such as Academic Search Premier, Expanded Academic ASAP, Periodical Abstracts, and WilsonSelectPlus all offer access to a broad range of both magazine and journal articles. Use these databases for news articles or information aimed at the general public.

Advantages:

• All of the databases offer some to all of the articles indexed in their entirety, a.k.a. in full text. Whether a particular article is available full text has no bearing on its quality. Some publishers sell the rights to the articles to virtually all databases, some sell only to a particular database, and some won't sell the rights at all.
• You can pick up articles from a wide variety of disciplines in the general databases, which may offer very different perspectives to the same topic, depending on what your topic is.
• The core news magazines and scholarly journals are almost always present in the general databases, though they may just be indexed and not presented in full text format.

Disadvantages:

• There usually aren't very many limiters you can utilize. The producers of the general database aren't going to analyze the article to the depth of telling you if it is a review article, a research article, etc.
• The citations are limited to periodicals. Relevant books or chapters from books won't be included.
• Subject headings vary in quality and consistency, and they don't offer much depth for a particular discipline.
• The number of periodicals indexed is rather shallow if compared to a subject-specific database. Academic Search Elite indexes around 3,200 periodicals, of which around 1,700 are peer-reviewed journals on all subjects, and around 175 of their sources fall under environmental studies. But LexisNexis Environmental indexes over 6,000 journals.

Subject-Specific Databases

On the opposite end of the spectrum there are subject-specific databases.

Advantages:

• Tailored to a particular discipline: business (ABI-INFORM); economics (EconLit); education (ERIC); environmental sciences (LexisNexis Environmental); medicine (MEDLINE); political science (Worldwide Political Science Abstracts); toxicology (TOXNET); etc.
• Usually attempts to be comprehensive, indexing as many relevant journals and other sources as possible for that discipline.
• Indexing itself usually attempts to offer depth: sophisticated subject headings, descriptions of what kind of article it is (review, research, clinical trial, etc.), who the audience is for the article. And therefore the database interfaces offer lots of different ways of limiting your search.
• Usually doesn't just index journal articles, but includes other useful sources like dissertations, books and the chapters within books, and sometimes papers presented at conferences.
• They usually include historical coverage, since most go back to the mid 1960s.

Disadvantages:

• Though there are exceptions, there usually are no full text articles available. All you get is a citation and most of the time a summary of the source.
• You can easily be overwhelmed by the number of results if you type in general words. You will need to be fairly specific in what you are looking for.
• The comprehensiveness of the database means you will pull up citations from some obscure journals and other resources that may prove difficult to actually get your hands on, as well as on materials in other languages.

Citation Databases

There's another series of databases that cover broad categories as well: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Social Sciences Citation Index. All of them are produced by the ISI or Institute for Scientific Information and available in the database called Web of Science. These citation indexes are much more comprehensive than the Wilson ones in terms of the number of journals indexed. However, the articles are not analyzed and given subject headings and abstracted by the index producers. (If there is a summary of the article and keywords given, they were in the original article and the producers just copied that information.) Instead the index analyzes the citations within the article, so one can figure out who is citing whom in their research.

Advantages:

• Very large collection of scholarly journals included in the indexing.
• They are the only source that analyzes the citations. Can sort the results list by number of times cited, so the articles that are the most popular rise to the top.
• The databases do some analysis of the type of article (book review, editorial, news item, etc.). One can't tell what type of research article it is, but one can at least eliminate those things that aren't research articles.
• You can view the citations themselves in brief format. If there's a record for the particular citation, it will be hyperlinked.
• Wonderful source for finding scholarly book reviews.

Disadvantages:

• There usually are no full text articles. (There will be a link to the full text if available in the database ScienceDirect.)
• Online version only goes back to 1987. We have Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index in print back to the 1970s, but we don't have Science Citation Index in print. (Note: Print version extremely difficult to use; not intuitive at all.)
• Many times there is no abstract or descriptors for the article. The indexers have not created consistent subject headings. All you get is the title of the article, author(s), and where it's published. Which means that your keywords will probably have to be in the title of the article in order for a relevant record to appear. This works fine for the sciences, since the article titles tend to be self-explanatory and have all the unique words in them. But this doesn't work so well for the humanities.
• Strength of the citation indexes is really in the sciences. Humanities subjects are kind of more of an afterthought to the producers, since citation analysis apparently isn't as important to scholars in the humanities.

So What Should I Use?

What kind of database you want to use depends on what kind of research you want to do.

I just need a few recent articles on my topic.

Try a general/interdisciplinary database that has some full text articles. I recommend Academic Search Elite and Expanded Academic ASAP, because with these you can easily limit to peer-reviewed journals. Expanded Academic ASAP has better subject headings, but Academic Search Elite covers more journals.

I want to do a comprehensive search for articles on my topic.

Try one or more subject-specific database. You should be able to research back to the 1960s and hundreds to thousands of sources are included. Certainly try LexisNexis Environmental's Environmental Abstracts for most topics, but you may have to use some other ones if you are interested in an issue from a particular perspective, such as political, economic, etc.

I want to find the key articles on my topic.

Try Web of Science and sort the result list by "times cited." (This option is at the top right of the search results screen in Web of Science.)

I want to find news coverage of an issue.

Again, try LexisNexis Environmental, but the News, Journals & Commentary subsection. If you just want Illinois news articles, try Chicago Tribune, LexisNexis Academic, or Newsdex. You might also want to try Illinois Issues [print JK5701.I47, in REF and Level 3], a monthly magazine on state politics from UIS.

Phrasing a Search Query

When looking for articles, you will want to be more specific than you were for finding books. Articles tend to be on narrow topics, and there are usually summaries of the articles in the citations, or even the entire article. If you look for a general topic, you will probably be overwhelmed with results.

Boil down your issue into keywords. Think of synonyms for your keywords. I'd suggest sticking to the nouns and ignoring verbs and adjectives. (For instance, there are just way too many words to describe the abstract concept of "good.")

Most of the databases will want you to format your search query using Boolean logic, where you type in single words or simple phrases, combining terms with the connectors AND, OR, or NOT.

Example: If you want to find articles on the theory of natural selection as proposed by either Darwin or Wallace, type natural selection AND (darwin OR wallace)

The latest trend in databases is to let users type in queries similar to Internet search engines, or where you just type in a string of words and the system ranks the results. This is usually called a Relevance Search, though they may not name it at all. To get more precise results, always put phrases in quotation marks. You may also be able to require a word or phrase to appear by putting a + sign in front of the word/phrase.

So for the above example I would type:

to require that the phrase natural selection be there, but not necessarily both Darwin and Wallace. Those records with both will rise to the top, while those that mention one or the other will be farther down the list.

• Try searching by subject heading, though this may actually get you more results rather than fewer.
• Add more search terms. Try to think about what other aspects of the subject you want the articles to reflect.
• Keyword search within a field. You can usually narrow your search by using the Subject, Title, or Source fields within the record.
• Also, note any limiters available on a particular database: date range, language, publication types (journal article, peer-reviewed, dissertation, etc.).

• Try looking for more versions of your keyword, like plurals or variations of the word. To look for variations of a stem of a word in most databases, type the stem followed by an asterisk (*). In a few databases, it's a + or a ? or a $ or an !. Consult the online help for the particular database for "truncation."
• Try to think of other words to describe your topic. What words could someone possibly use to describe your issue?

I have citations to articles. Now what?

Go to the Journals @ UIS to see if your periodical is

1. available full text, or
2. owned in print or microfilm by us.

Type in the name of the journal, magazine or newspaper and click the search button.

The will list those databases that offer full text access of the particular journal, noted by a date range. The UIS periodical holdings are included as well, and it gives you the date range and the call number. You may also use the yellow UIS Periodical Holdings spiral-bound books scattered around the library, or the book catalog PrairieCat.

If the periodical is not here, either in full text or hardcopy, then you may request it via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Fill out the ILL form online, and the article will be mailed to the address indicated. You will be asked for your I-Card number, the one that begins with 21412. Please allow 1-3 weeks for delivery.